


of beasts and men

by nowweareunstoppable



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Ghouls, Golems, Hurt/Comfort, Pack Bonding, Pack Dynamics, Politics, Sirens, Team as Family, Trolls, Werewolves, Witches, enjoy, everyone is some sort of human/creature hybrid, this is long af
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 14:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11808165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowweareunstoppable/pseuds/nowweareunstoppable
Summary: (werewolves & ghouls & witches, oh my!)It hurt, but it hurt like a lightning strike must; so powerful that the pain of it is overshadowed by the sheer momentum of the act. She was an explosion, but instead of coming apart, she was converging again into something more than the previous sum of her parts.Pidge came back with the taste of copper on her tongue and panic pulsing inside of her.





	1. Chapter 1

“Pidge, if I have to tell you to get back inside the truck one more time I’m pulling over and making you ride with Coran.”

 

Pidge scoffed a little, “You would never do that to me.” Coran always let Lance sit shotgun so she’d be stuck in the back with Hunk, who tended to get carsick. But she pulled her upper body back into the cab anyway. Left her head still stuck out the window, though, because the world has never had more depth to it than it did now.

 

She swore she could smell the mountains. The sharp freshness of the leaves and the rich wetness of the soil. She could almost taste cold stone in the back of her throat. It was intoxicating and wonderful, and all encompassing. Nothing ever felt like this before and Pidge didn’t know how she lived for so long without it.

 

The faraway rumble of Keith on the motorcycle even made its way into her newly sharp ears. He was at least a few miles ahead, but he’d slow down soon. The sun was starting to swing low in the sky and Shiro had to put the visor down to keep it out of his eyes.

 

A warm scent snagged Pidge’s attention back outside. Musky and alive; some sort of animal. Her heart rate doubled in a second and she ignored Shiro’s previous warning in favor of leaning her upper body out of the window again to try and pinpoint the smell. She tipped her nose upward and sucked in an eager breath, but as her body stiffened and started to vibrate, Shiro’s hand clamped down on the scruff of her sweatshirt and pulled her back inside. He had to prop the steering wheel straight with his knee to do it and he hastily grabbed at the wheel with his hand as soon as her butt hit the seat. Once the truck was stabilized Shiro used his knees to steer for a second in order to reach over roll up Pidge’s window.

 

“Breathe in through your mouth. Work on your centering techniques. Focus.”

 

Pidge squirmed, reluctant to withdraw from the vibrant, overwhelming world just beyond the glass. But even hearing Shiro’s voice was enough to leak some tension out of her muscles. He knew what he was talking about; he’d been doing it his entire life, after all.

 

She settled back in her seat and tugged her legs up into a criss-cross position. Her heart was still thrumming but she knew she wasn’t close to losing control.

 

It was just the _potential_ of it all. Enthralling, still, even after almost a month. Though, it hadn’t started out feeling like this.

 

Pidge drew in another slow breath, tried to gather all her bits of focus and energy back into herself, and then chanced a look over at Shiro.

 

 He was slouching back into his seat a little bit while his left arm rested on the windowsill with a loose hold on the steering wheel. Lance’s careful folding of the empty right sleeve of his t-shirt had come undone but Shiro didn’t seem to notice. The curvy mountain passes weren’t great for the radio but he hummed along between bouts of static. It was the happiest she’d seen him look since that dinner at her parents’ place. The last night that Dad and Matt were home and not classified as ‘missing persons.’

 

Pidge’s mood sobered as she sank back into the memories.

 

\-------------------

 

“Matthew! Watch your elbow, you almost knocked over Shiro’s glass!”

 

Matt winced, his mouth still half open in a grin, frozen with his arms in the air in the midst of one of his wild gesticulations.

 

“Sorry, Mom.”

 

Shiro smiled at Colleen, his eyes crinkled up in amusement. “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Holt. I’ve got good reflexes.”

 

“You tripped over the doormat on your way in,” Pidge accused. The table broke out into laughter and she preened for a moment. Ever since Shiro had joined Matt and Sam’s investigation team, he’d wormed his way into the hearts of the Holt family quite effortlessly.

 

His solid, good natured demeanor gelled nicely with the more exuberant antics of her older brother and he got along well with Sam’s leadership style. Shiro treated Pidge like another member of the experimental team, too, which meant a lot to her since Sam and Colleen refused to let her tag along on any of their expeditions. They let her tinker with the boys in the Holt garage-turned-laboratory but she had to rely on Matt’s over-exaggerated tales and Shiro’s more linear explanations when they came back from an equipment test run or a mapping trip.

 

Shiro didn’t seem quite as interested as the other men in tracking down Originals, but helped as much as he could. They were getting closer to cracking it open, too.

 

 Pidge nudged Shiro’s elbow and pointed at the potatoes when he looked down at her. He stretched across the table to get them for her and she marveled at just how _big_ he was. Matt was the same age as Shiro, both a few months shy of 21, but they could not have been built more differently. Her brother was lanky and barely classified as average height (Pidge had described him as _willowy_ once to his face and barely escaped with her life), while Shiro was breaking 6 feet and absolutely packed with muscle. He looked more beast than dude sometimes, but Pidge was never so much as wary around him.

 

The first time Sam had brought him over after his interview, Shiro shook her hand and gave her smile so warm Pidge couldn’t help but mirror it right back at him. He didn’t seem to mind that she was four years younger than him and Matt, he was always asking her questions about the tracking tech she and Matt were working on and including her in discussions about the tunnel systems. He even stayed late to spin out Galra and monster born conspiracy theories with her and Matt, stretched out on the living room carpet, sometimes into the grey hours of the morning.

 

Tonight, though, they were heading out early. Matt had made some changes in their quintessence reader earlier in the day and was picking up some interesting trails.

 

“I’m serious Samuel, if you even hear a train coming, you get out of there.” Colleen stared down her husband until he held up his hands in surrender, “Of course, dear, but I told you, trains haven’t been run in this section in decades.”

 

“What section is it, Dad?” Pidge interjected, but Sam saw through her immediately. “Pidge, the stuff you know already is technically against the law. The Garrison is a federal agency, and even if it looks like we live in our own garage sometimes, we do work for the government. I can’t have you anywhere near this project.”

 

“Oh come on, I helped Matt build the tracker! I know the circuits better than he does!”

 

“You liar, you do no-”

 

“Okay, enough,” Sam interrupted. He stood and brushed the dinner crumbs off his shirt and leaned over to kiss his wife. “Let’s go, boys. I want to get there before dark.”

 

Matt snickered and got up out of his seat, “Yeah, so Shiro doesn’t get us lost like last time.”

 

Shiro’s eyebrows jumped in indignation, “Um, excuse me, you were supposed to be reading me the GPS directions. I seem to recall you shouting out the window instead of telling me when to turn.”

 

“There was a dog! I had to tell her she was perfect!”

 

Sam sighed in long suffering exasperation and grabbed Matt by his collar. Shiro followed obediently at his heels without having to be manhandled and waved at Pidge over his shoulder.

 

“See you tomorrow, Pidge.”

 

She didn’t see them tomorrow. Or the day after that. After the evening news stopped running their pictures, Pidge and her mom stapled up flyers for weeks. Nobody ever called.

 

\------------------------------

 

The night when everything went to hell started out happy enough. Shiro always enjoyed dinner with the Holt family, especially when Matt’s younger sister was there. She kept all of them on their toes and it was fun to watch someone perfectly push Matt’s buttons. Shiro was actually getting pretty good at it, but Pidge had years of experience on him.

 

It was warm, even as the sun scraped the horizon. He tilted his head back and sniffed covertly at the breeze coming in through the car window. Nothing smelled out of order, just the general exhaust and overwhelming asphalt smell of a thriving city. Matt was even reading him steady directions, apparently determined to prove himself this time around.

 

Sam hummed distractedly in the backseat. He had hand drawn maps spread out across his lap and Shiro was worried the wind was going to scatter them at some point during the ride.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to roll the windows up, Sam?”

 

Sam waved a dismissive hand at him without taking his eyes off his work, “No, no, it’s quite alright. I know you like them down and it’s not bothering me at all.”

 

Shiro felt a rush of affection for the odd little humans he’d been assigned to. Allura had cautioned him not to get too close to them, he might have to ruin all their work after all, but she hadn’t met the Holts. It was impossible not to be fond of them.

 

Besides, he’d been getting by so far by just gently leading them away from any dangerous monster born discoveries. Matt and Pidge both loved to talk to him while they built things and he made sure to ask a lot of questions so he could disarm their equipment when necessary. It was all easy enough, and more importantly, harmless.

 

Though, the tracker looked differently than it had last night. He hoped Matt hadn’t changed too much on it. Shiro had switched some wires around yesterday so it should be safely benign, and Coran had cased out this tunnel system a few months ago and declared it unused. It should just be a few hours romping around in the dark, finding nothing, and then going home filled with even more theories to work on tomorrow. The Holts were amazingly optimistic.

 

So yeah, all things considered, the night started out well. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that way.

 

“SHIRO!”

 

He should have known; he should have realized. The whole derelict subway tunnel system stank of ghouls, but where in this city did it _not_ smell like Galra nowadays. He’d brushed it off and he shouldn’t have. This was all his fault.

 

“Matt! Run!” Sam’s usually even-keeled voice was shrill with fear.

 

So much for the little family that’d taken him in. If they were lucky, they’d survive this, but Shiro would never be welcomed back. Then, another group of ghouls tumbled around the corner to join the first and Shiro’s thoughts of survival flew out of his head. They’d be lucky to die quickly. He couldn’t handle this many on his own.

 

But, he wouldn’t abandon his charges. There were a lot of things swirling around in his blood, but cowardice wasn’t one of them. He sent a frantic call out to Allura with the small metal com band around his bicep before finally allowing his pulse to skyrocket.

 

Adrenaline thrummed through his veins and his body took over like the well-trained machine it was. It was only a moment of pain, stretching and growing and bleeding, but Shiro barreled through it and came out on the other side a snarling mass of fur and shining teeth.

 

Humans knew about monster borns, thanks to the Galra Breach, but knowing of their existence and actually seeing one tear its way out of its human skin was a whole different beast, literally. Matt yelped in fear and stumbled but Sam grabbed his arm and dragged him forward, away from the ghouls. Away from Shiro. Matt hesitated a second more, staring wide-eyed at him, but turned and ran when Shiro gestured for him to go with a jerk his muzzle.

 

He spun on his back paws to face the roiling purple mass of Galra and sprang towards them. He had to give Sam and Matt enough time to get back aboveground. He _had_ to; there was no other option.

 

The horde that was chasing them were low level Galra, more ghoul blood than human in them, which was probably why they were underground and not masquerading as human allies on the surface. These ones were scrawny and their leathery skin was patchy and grimy. A few were even running on all fours with their knuckles scraping the ground. But, for all they lacked in proper bloodlines and socialization, they made up for in numbers.

 

Shiro had no idea there were any Galra in this system at all, not to mention the dozens and dozens that were now slavering after them. Coran’s data was too old; Shiro should have used last night to check for himself. _Stupid._ The dank tunnel walls echoed with the ghouls’ screeches and yowls and made them sound even more numerous than they were. The only light was filtering in through cracks that spidered up through the ground to the street high above them, and without Matt’s flashlight it was difficult to distinguish one ghoul from another.

 

Shiro rose up on his back paws and slammed back down with as much of a roar as he could muster. The puddles on the floor splashed underneath him and the walls rang. The ghouls leading the charge faltered but were overtaken by the ones behind them when they tried to slow. For a moment, they became a tangled mess, but far too soon, the front lines rolled to their feet and were upon him.

 

Shiro caught the first one in his jaws easily enough and flung it hard into the wall. His claws scraped across the face of another and he smacked a third aside. But then three more rushed forward at once. He ducked his great head under the first but it caught its claws into his flank as it flew over him. His yelp of pain was cut off by the second latching its fangs into his jowls and the third tangled itself in his legs. He fell with a splash and the ghoul underneath him screeched as it was crushed.

 

Shiro flung his head and smashed the creature hanging off his face into the stones and it dropped away but two more took its place. He struggled to his feet and howled, hoping in spite of himself that Allura and the team were on their way, that they would get there in time, even though he knew they wouldn’t. Another Galra smashed into him and he fell again. He lunged forward on his belly and crushed bone between his jaws. He rose one last time and threw himself into the thick of the horde, biting and clawing and slashing, and trying to ignore the pang of needle fangs against his short fur.

 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw three ghouls break away from the fight and tear away down the tunnel after Matt and Sam. He roared in frustration and clawed himself away from his attackers in an attempt to chase them down. It was his job to keep them safe; he wasn’t supposed to let the Galra hurt anyone else and he was _failing._ A wave of purple overtook him and he couldn’t move, couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t help. He howled again, powerless and full of fury.

 

His sharp ears picked up a human scream of pain and a struggle far down the tunnel and Shiro let his head finally drop in defeat. A Galra stepped on his muzzle and ground it down into the rough cement and Shiro let it. They’d caught up to the Holts and there was nothing he could do about it. It was over.

 

To his surprise, instead of tiny claws and teeth ripping out his throat like he expected, three more Galra climbed onto his broad back and started to bind his fore and hind legs together. A spark of hope flared in his chest. Perhaps they would keep Sam and Matt alive as well. Another cry of fear and hurt echoed towards him, this time clearly distinguishable as Matt’s voice. Shiro wanted to call out to him but shifting back into his human form would be suicide. So he just closed his eyes and hoped.

 

Did his team even get his distress signal? Would it be able to carry through the ground, all the way back to Allura? Even if they did get it, Shiro was certain the Galra weren’t just going to leave them in this tunnel; would they be able to find him? Fear rippled through stomach. Fear for himself, a bone burning worry for the Holts, shame and regret for letting this happen. He hoped Keith would be okay without him. Lance and Hunk, too. They were so young.

 

The thought of his boys, alone, sent one last surge of energy through him. Shiro tried in vain to buck the vile creatures off his back, but a sharp blow slammed into the side of his head in response and after that he couldn’t do anything anymore.

 

\---------------------

 

After a few weeks, Pidge stopped relying on the police to find her family and started looking herself. Her mom was no help; she still went to the Garrison every day in vain, trying to get any scrap of information she could out of them. She’d beg, cry, shout, threaten and yell some more, but they were stonewalling her. The government wasn’t to be trusted, Pidge realized, and it all lead back to the Breach. She was sure of it.

 

The Breach happened back when she was still a baby, but the shockwaves were still rippling through society over a decade later. When the Galra stood up and revealed themselves to humanity, they’d made themselves indispensable allies. They were praised for being whistle blowers, for stepping up to ‘save’ humanity from the hidden threat of the other monster borns. But of course, the Galra framed themselves as the good monsters, martyrs to the rescue, and to allow humankind to do with as they wished as long as they got their message across.

 

Of course, it was becoming increasingly obvious to Pidge that it was all just lies built upon betrayal. Her dad was studying the ghouls, and now he was gone. Coincidence? Bullshit.

 

The ghouls who called themselves Galra made sure to infiltrate every inch of human society before divulging their true identities. They were in every branch of government and present in law enforcement and military operations. Ghouls masqueraded as Wall Street execs and diplomats. They built their entire image around trust; _have faith in us, we’re on your side not theirs, we’re just like you_.

 

They then proceeded to gather up all the human fear and backlash and thrust it upon the other monster borns, who never even saw it coming. Before the Breach, they’d lived comfortable lives, hidden in secrecy. Monster borns with physical differences used witch’s charms to hide their true appearances while others simply had to conceal their magical abilities. They’d subsisted harmoniously among humans that way for thousands of years.

 

But when Pidge was too young to even remember, humankind recoiled in terror from the revelation that they were not the only intelligent beings on their planet. Just as the Galra had hoped, fear was the root of chaos. Riots forced the governments to herd monster borns into guarded camps, for the ‘safety of the people.’ All while the Galra stood proudly on the side of humanity.

 

The ghouls were celebrated in human history for their role in the Breach but all Pidge could think was _how is everyone buying this?_ Her lip curled up in disgust as she worked on her laptop. Her fingers pounded out rows of code and the familiar sound that usually served to calm her became aggressive. Pidge remembered most of the program that’d gone into Matt’s tracker but there were still a few blank spots she was trying to iron out. She was close, though.

 

It was designed to lock onto certain energy signatures that Sam had spent years researching. He called it quintessence and described it as strands of invisible power that wove around every living thing. His particular research was focused on isolating the particular quintessence frequency that tended to only show up in humans that had trace amounts of monster blood somewhere in their genetic line.

 

‘Monster born’ was a bit of a deceptive descriptor in Pidge’s opinion. The people that were called monster borns nowadays had some sort of monster ancestor, that much was true, but it was so diluted and far back in their family tree that it would be more accurate to call them great-great-great-great grandchildren of monsters. Didn’t have quite the same ring to it.

 

But this in fact was what Sam had stumbled upon. There were quintessence signatures that usually showed up in humans, and certain ones that showed up in those with monster ancestry, but there was also a third; an anomaly. Pidge had been hiding crouched behind the door to the garage the night Sam explained it to Matt. A flash of quintessence so strong and vivid that its documentation was completely off Sam’s recording charts.

 

Finding the source of the rare, intense readings became her dad’s white whale, so to speak. He’d already dropped his promising NASA career to work for the government studying monster borns when they first where dragged into the light (he just couldn’t resist uncharted territory), but this was a whole new level of obsession. To Colleen’s chagrin, Matt didn’t need any convincing to follow in his father’s footsteps.

 

And neither did Pidge. She tied the last piece of code into her program and sat back as it booted itself up. Her laptop didn’t have all the fancy readings that Matt’s tracker did, but it had the power storage needed to run, and that was enough for her. She wasn’t trying to record anything; all she wanted was to find her family, and the best way to do that was to follow the same trail they’d been on when they went missing.

 

\--------------------------

 

It looked like an entrance to a subway tunnel. Pidge was tempted to pull up her flashlight app on her phone, but she didn’t want to attract any attention. This was not a part of the city her mother would be pleased to see her in.

 

The entrance was bricked up, or it had been years ago. Now it was sort of a crumbly hill of grey stones, moss, and flaking remains of graffiti tags. She glanced down at her laptop to check, and yes, it was picking up the same steady signal she’d been following all night.

 

It was weird, though, that it led her here. Galra weren’t the type of monster borns to hide in the shadows, they were proud and prominent. They were tall, all shades of purple, and strong. They made sure they were perceived as noble and indispensable to any sort of human undertakings. There was no reason that the Galra trail she was tracking should lead to this clearly abandoned subway tunnel.

 

Pidge’s only hope was to find a promising trajectory tonight and get back home before her mom noticed she was missing from her bed, but now that she was here, the mystery of it all, not to mention the tantalizing thought of Matt and Sam being so close, just underneath the concrete, was too strong a pull to resist.

 

Impulse control was never her strongest asset. Kicking a few bricks in was easy enough and Pidge was slim enough to fit through the hole she created. The tunnel sloped steadily down and she readily followed it after making sure the tracking program confirmed the signal’s direction.

 

In retrospect, Pidge really wished she’d brought along an actual flashlight instead of just relying on her phone’s light app, which was steadily leeching her battery. At this point, it was nearing 2AM and Pidge was torn between investigating the tunnel further, or turning back to go home and save it for another night. She’d come so far already, though. Pidge squinted into the darkness, trying to force her eyes to see something novel against the grey stones and the moss and the slurry of water and gravel that would give her a reason to keep going.

 

It was really really quiet. The only sounds were her wet footsteps padding and echoing lazily back and forth across the walls. The air in the tunnel was thick with potential; it felt alive. Like it was waiting for her, or at least waiting for _something_.

 

Pidge faltered for the first time since entering the tunnel. She’d been walking for almost an hour and was pretty deep underground at this point. Maybe she should go back. She didn’t exactly have a plan if she did stumble upon whatever was throwing out the freaky strong signal. Best case scenario, she’d stumble upon her family and they’d all go home. Boom, done.

 

A sound brought her out of her own head. Or rather the continuation of a sound that shouldn’t have been continuing. She’d stopped walking, but there was still a faint thudding of footsteps resonating out of the darkness.

 

Her pulse immediately launched into fucking hyperspeed. It became apparent just how utterly alone she was down here, and also she’d told nobody where she was going or what she was doing. _Great_ plan, Pidge, just fantastic. She snapped her laptop closed, powered off her phone light and pressed herself tight against the wall, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The sound of footsteps kept coming, growing louder. They seemed erratic, though, staccato for a few steps, then a slower dragging noise rasping over the stones.

 

It was too fucking dark; she couldn’t see anything. Pidge would deny it to her dying day, but a small whine of fear may or may not have slunk out from between her lips without her permission.

 

The footsteps stopped, they were just around the bend now, but still far enough away that whoever they belonged to shouldn’t have been able to hear her. But somehow-

 

“Who’s there?”

 

Pidge stiffened, shocked to the point of complete immobilization. “Shiro?”

 

“ _Pidge?_ Oh god, Pidge, no. You have to go; you have to go right now!”

 

His voice was shrill and sounded like he’d been chewing broken glass, but she’d spent a lot of nights listening to that voice spinning theories and picking on Matt; it was unmistakably Takashi Shirogane. Pidge fiddled with her phone and managed to flick the flashlight back on just as Shiro stumbled up to her.

 

He threw his left arm up over his eyes as the bright beam of light flashed over him. It blinded Pidge too for a second, but she blinked it away and immediately gasped.

 

Shiro was wearing the same clothes that he’d been in when he’d disappeared but they were ragged and torn, and soaked. Not with water though… was that _blood_? His normally black hair had a whitened streak through his forelock. Shiro looked awkward and off balance and Pidge’s eyes rapidly swept over him once, and then again before it clicked.

 

“Shiro, your arm!” Or, his absence of an arm. His right shoulder was intact but his upper arm ended in a shredded, bloody mess before where his elbow should have been. It looked like Shiro had tried to tie a scrap of cloth around it as a tourniquet but even with it, the stump was steadily oozing blood.

 

What the hell happened to him? Pidge’s adrenaline was thrumming so hard it made her feel lightheaded. And if Shiro was here- “Where’s Matt and Dad?” She spat it out, urgent; she was starting to get swept up in the current of Shiro’s agitation.

 

Shiro didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to hear her question, he just grabbed her by the collar of her sweatshirt and started dragging her behind his lurching footsteps back up the way she’d come. The skin of his face that wasn’t covered in blood and mud was gaunt and so pale it looked grey. She struggled against him, but even in his condition his grip on her was so unnaturally tight that it was like trying to pry open a bear trap.

 

Then, over the sound of Shiro’s harsh gasps and Pidge’s protests, she heard a noise like thunder rolling up from the depths of the cavernous tunnel system. Shiro picked it up too and froze with his head tilted slightly towards the noise.

 

He moaned and Pidge realized with a sinking feeling that it was a sound of fear. She started panting and stopped resisting his grip. She’d never known Shiro to be anything but solid and put together. He never did fall quite to the level of sibling squabbling that she and Matt used to, instead he’d always kept an air of composure balanced atop his broad shoulders. So the utter absence of anything even resembling calm in the man caused a heave of panic to roll up into her chest.

 

“Shiro, please, what’s going on?” Pidge tried, but the thunder was louder now and again it didn’t look like Shiro heard her.

 

“Pidge you have to run,” he choked out. His intact hand shoved her forward and she staggered. He was still absurdly strong, even minus a limb and looking half starved.

 

Deep under her mounting terror, a chord of resolve kept her from bolting. She spun and slapped away Shiro’s desperate pushes. “If my brother and dad are down there some where, I am _not_ leaving.”

 

By now the thundering was so loud that Pidge could barely hear her own voice. Then, with a chill of realization, something about the noise clicked. It wasn’t thunder, again it was footsteps. But this time it wasn’t just the singular steps of Shiro, this sounded like hundreds of… something.

 

Distantly, Pidge remembered a documentary on tsunamis she’d watched once with Matt. She’d been morbidly captivated by the way people would get caught standing on the waterless beach, entranced, not even realizing what was coming before it was far, far too late.

 

When the ghouls came spilling around the corner, a purple roiling mass of squalling claws and teeth, Pidge realized that she was the clueless one on the beach. Her stomached bottomed out and then the ghouls were upon them.

 

Shiro threw himself over her as the first wave hit and they slammed together hard into the ground. He took the brunt of the initial attack and Pidge felt the thud of bodies slamming against his back. Hot blood from his shredded arm splattered across her face from the force of it and she tried to scream but the suffocating mass of Shiro and the ghouls drove the breath out of her.

 

One wiggled under Shiro’s elbow and sank its tiny fangs into her hip. Pidge formed a fist completely on instinct and slammed it into the monster’s eye socket, making it squeal and let go of her, and then Shiro grabbed it by the back of its neck and pitched it away.

 

He was fighting like a mad man in his attempt to keep the ghouls off of her with little regard to his own vulnerability. For a moment, none of them were touching Pidge, but there were so many and in another second there were teeth digging deep into the soft skin of her belly, deeper than what was safe and okay, and claws snarling themselves in her hair.

 

These ghouls were feral, the only resemblance they bore to the Galra Pidge saw every day on the surface of the city was their purple skin and fur. Other than that, they were smaller and hunched and absolutely, savagely insane. One cackled as it kicked at Shiro’s head and chanted, “Hungry! Human and dog will feed the ghouls, feed the ghouls, feed us!”

 

Pidge’s attention was snatched away by the sensation of fingers on her jaw. She screeched and tried to tear herself away, but the fingers yanked her chin around and she realized that it was Shiro. He was bleeding heavily from deep furrow across the bridge of his nose and if she had room for any emotion other than panic left in her she would have been aghast at the sight of tears running thickly down his cheeks.

 

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I have to. They’ll kill you, Pidge, I have to, oh god I’m so sorry.” His voice was guttural, coming from somewhere deep inside him and so profoundly sad that Pidge felt tears prick at her eyes just from the sound of it, though she had no clue what he was talking about.

 

A ghoul bit down hard on the top of her ear and by the time she wrenched herself away with a ripping white streak of pain, Shiro had pulled away.

 

Pidge fought to pick her head up and find him. Did he leave her? Realize that saving her was a hopeless cause and cut his losses? She struggled hard against the ghouls fighting to tear her apart, kicked and scratched and _bit_ back, and finally caught sight of Shiro again. He was only a few paces away from her but unlike Pidge, he was up on his feet. Ghouls were hanging from his arm and shoulder and clinging to his legs but Shiro gave what could only be described as a roar and then he- well Pidge didn’t exactly know what he did.

 

The outlines of his form seemed to blur, and then stretch and _explode_ into a new shape. The ghouls wavered and drew back and Pidge used the respite to gasp a much needed breath into her lungs. Everything hurt. Her ear was a bright smear of pain and thin skin over her stomach muscles felt like a tattered rag.

 

But none of that mattered because a long limbed, snarling animal was crouching where Shiro had been standing. Even on all fours it was almost the same height that Shiro had been. Its body was long and wolfish, with huge paws and a drooling, toothy maw but its ribcage seemed shorter than a canine’s would be, more human proportioned. The fur was shorter than a wolf’s, too, except for a longer mane-like stripe down the back of its head and spine.

 

Long jowls swung as the wolf-like creature snapped and snarled at the mob of ghouls that were beginning to gain back their confidence. It was so dark in the subway tunnel that Pidge couldn’t make out anymore details other than that its fur color seemed to be whorls of black and grey, with flashes of white.

 

“Shiro?” Pidge whispered, and the creature turned to look her in the eyes. Unfortunately, the last spell of surprise that remained over the ghouls at Shiro’s transformation shattered in response to Pidge’s question.

 

One particularly gangly ghoul vaulted over one of its fellows and smashed its open palm against the side of Pidge’s head before she could duck out of the way. The blow sent her somersaulting hard into the wall and the rest of the ghouls fell on her in what she could only describe as a sort of feeding frenzy while she lay stunned.

 

From the shrieks and snarls it sounded like the wolf-that-was-Shiro was trying to fight his way back to her but Pidge couldn’t see anything but red. She was being literally torn apart.

 

Knowing she was going to die didn’t feel like people described it in books. Pidge wasn’t overtaken by a sense of calm acceptance. She didn’t see the chapters of her life splayed out before her like a slideshow. There was no light, or anyone stepping out of the shadows to guide her onwards. It was just pain. Brutal fucking pain.

 

Then, the ghoul on top of her face was savagely ripped away and Pidge was staring into a mouthful of teeth that were even longer than her own fingers. It was Shiro; again he’d come to her. He bowled through the mob like a bull, head down, flinging purple bodies left and right. Pidge couldn’t help but think it was so futile. Neither one of them was going to be able to escape this hellish place.

 

It was only a moment of stillness, but when the wolf was close enough to make eye contact, Pidge knew beyond a doubt that it was truly Shiro. His dark, human eyes stared out at her, tears dripping dark tracks through his fur. It was only a moment, but it was long enough for Shiro to dip his head and almost gently take her upper arm in his mouth.

 

The wolf sank his teeth into her and cried.

 

As blood gushed up, Pidge felt like Shiro’s teeth had not only broke skin, that they’d also punctured some untouched, volatile vessel deep inside of her that she’d never known was there. And now that it was open, it was a gush, a torrent, a _tsunami_ of energy bubbling up out of her. Pidge felt like everything she was was frothing over into something unrecognizable.

 

It hurt, but it hurt like a lightning strike must; so powerful that the pain of it is overshadowed by the sheer momentum of the act. She was an explosion, but instead of coming apart, she was converging again into something more than the previous sum of her parts.

 

Pidge came back with the taste of copper on her tongue and panic pulsing inside of her.

 

There was no time to think or to even look down at herself and figure out why she was so tall even though it felt like she was on her hands and knees. No time to think about the array of smells punching into her nose or the way the screaming of the ghouls was ten times louder then it was just a few seconds ago.

 

 She felt like she’d caught a second wind, except the second wind was an F5 tornado and also she’d been injected with steroids and possibly snorted a little bit of cocaine. She wasn’t on the edge of death anymore, but now she was terrified in a whole new way.

 

Pidge tried to call out to Shiro but a distinctly inhuman noise came out of her mouth instead. Her mouth that felt too long and way too pointy. He was crouching close to her but upon seeing her up on her feet, he turned and charged into action again. She needed to go as well; the ghouls had rallied and were leaping onto her back and biting and clawing at her sides. So, she dove clumsily back into the motion, hobbling on what felt like too many legs and bowstring muscles that didn’t make sense anymore.

 

Pidge dodged and stumbled backwards until her butt hit the wall of the tunnel, trapped, and then the terror was so fucking strong that there was nothing else to do but fight.

 

\-----------------------

 

Shiro wasn’t used to fear. It made him feel horribly wild. He’d spent most of his life wrestling himself under control, and losing it now felt like going back the careful structure he’d carefully built up.

 

But over the last weeks, the Galra taught Shiro to fear them by restraining and beating him. They starved him and poked and prodded and tore at him just because they were _curious_. He became afraid of the Arena, buried so deep underground that it felt like the earth had swallowed him up.  Hurting people and killing things scared him. But he had no choice in the fighting pits of the Arena, just like he didn’t have a choice now.

 

Shiro bounded towards the spot he’d last seen Pidge, under a pile of vicious ghouls. He wanted to raise his great paws and swipe them away (Hunk liked to say that getting whacked by one of them felt like a grizzly bear bowling him over), but when he tried the absence of his right foreleg nearly sent him crashing forward onto his face.

 

Shiro shook his head to clear away the white spots that wiggled across his vision whenever he looked at the stump. He found his footing and shoved his way into the brawl, trying to find where Pidge had gone under. He kept his ears pinned back tight to his skull to avoid them getting torn at and he was snarling so hard that his chest was a constant rumble, even if he couldn’t even hear himself over the din of the monsters.

 

A large ghoul was biting down on something and Shiro snaked his head forward to grab the back of its neck between his jaws. When he tore it off, he saw Pidge’s frightened, bloodied face and his heart lurched. God, he didn’t want to do this.

 

But it was Pidge’s only hope; if he didn’t she was going to die. Hell, she still might die, but it was a lot easier to defend yourself as a monster than it was as just a furless, clawless human. It’d give her a chance at least, and Shiro owed her that. His stupid mistakes had ripped her family away and that meant it was his fault too that she was even down here in the first place.

 

Being a monster born, especially a werewolf, was not an easy or happy life to live, but at this point, Pidge could either survive as a monster or not at all. Shiro was bleeding so much that he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to be conscious for much longer, so he stopped thinking and lurched forward.

 

He was as gentle as possible when he bit her, but the hot flood of blood into his mouth still made him gag. Despite his revulsion, he held on until he was sure Pidge was changing. When she started shuddering he released her bicep and flattened himself on top of her so the ghouls couldn’t reach her while she was vulnerable. He winced as they swiped at him, but his fur dulled the impact of their claws and he could stand it for a little while longer.

  
Transforming only took moments, even less when you were practiced at it, as Shiro was, but inexperienced humans instinctually tried to fight the changes instead of baring themselves to it and as a result the first times tended to be bloody and painful. Especially for those who were bitten not born.

 

Pidge convulsed one more time underneath him and almost bucked him off from the force of it. She was a lot larger than when she started, and as Shiro eased off of her she tensed and tried to scramble to her feet. Shiro smacked a ghoul away with the flat of his muzzle when it got to close to give her time to orient herself. He nipped at another one and the ghouls pulled back to circle and jeer at him out of the range of his teeth.

 

It was too dim in the tunnel to completely make out Pidge’s new features but Shiro could easily tell she was still just a pup. Her limbs were long and gangly even for a werewolf, who were generally longer limbed than actual canines, and her paws looked large and clumsy. She was slight and shorter than Shiro by almost a foot, and panting heavily. The whites of her eyes were the brightest thing in the tunnel as they rolled in distress and pain.

 

Shiro wanted to go to her and lick her wounds clean like he was supposed to. Pidge was pack now; he was responsible for her even more than before. Shiro had made her into a monster and now her life would be forever intertwined with his. The walls around him started to swim and blur.   _His responsibility_.

 

\---------------------------

 

The ghouls seemed to favor an ebb and flow sort of attack method. They’d mob Pidge all at once but as soon as she got her feet under her again and started to do some damage to their numbers the Galra would back off and regroup before pummeling her again. 

 

She didn’t mind this at all because Shiro was hardcore struggling and the breaks gave him a chance to drag himself upright again and again. His blood loss was catching up with him and he was staggering and swaying like a drunk. Because he was on three legs instead of four he kept falling down onto his remaining front elbow in a grotesque caricature of a play bow. Pidge would dart over to him and nudge him back up onto his paws but she couldn’t spend too much time with him or the ghouls would overrun them.

 

Pidge leapt forward to intercept a ghoul and caught it around the shoulder with her new powerful jaws. It felt so strange to reach with her face first instead of fighting with her hands but she wasn’t what she used to be. Bone crunched between her teeth and she shook her head savagely until the creature squealed. Spit one out, grab another, repeat.

 

Shiro cried out behind her and she turned in time to see him slump to the ground and his eyes roll back up into his head. _Fuck_. Pidge was honestly impressed he’d made it this long after seeing just how bad of shape he was in before the fight even started.

 

The ghouls tried to take advantage of Shiro’s vulnerability and Pidge was forced to abandon the small path she’d started to carve out towards the surface and fight her way back to Shiro’s side. She got there just as he gave a horrible spasm and started to shrink. It was slow and miserable watching him curl up back into a human, especially in comparison to the explosion of power that Shiro had put into his earlier transformation. Pidge whimpered and pushed at his shoulder with her nose but a ghoul used her distraction to fling itself onto Shiro’s defenseless, now human, back and she had to leap over him and smack it away. Maybe these stupid paws were good for something, after all.

 

But, she couldn’t keep this up, there were just too many of them, and her ear was bleeding down into eyes and she couldn’t wipe it away and her stomach felt like it tore open a little more every time she moved-

 

A booming rumble of a noise interrupted her spiraling thoughts. Dirt and stones started to rain down onto all of them and she flattened herself over Shiro, trying to protect his head. It was weird to be so much bigger than him. He fit comfortably under her chest and belly and Pidge reckoned it was probably hard to see that he was there at all when she hunkered down.

 

A huge chunk of cement thudded down only a few feet from their heads and it seemed to break the resolve of the ghouls that were still squalling and scrabbling at Pidge’s flanks. Most ran, but a few scattered far enough so that they could duck into an alcove of the tunnel farther down, but close enough that Pidge could still see their gleaming yellow eyes- but wait- was that light shining in?

 

Pidge craned her neck to look up at the rapidly crumbling ceiling and almost got a rock to the face (snout?) for her troubles. Shiro was eerily still beneath her.

 

And then, voices started to filter down through the widening cracks.

 

“Hunk, come on man you have to go faster!

 

“I’m trying! Cement doesn’t listen as well as normal rocks do!”

 

Pidge couldn’t stop the snarl that ripped through her chest. It wasn’t born from anger, just the fear that seemed to be clogging every single one of her senses since the moment she heard Shiro stumbling down the tunnel towards her. That’d probably only been a few minutes ago but it felt like a horrible eternity.

 

Everything was different. Her body was all wrong, unearthly and twisted up like a coiled spring, but more critically, something in her head seemed off. Objectively she knew she was still Pidge but her mind was moving in tracks that it had never known before. Terror and pain and energy were overpowering. There was no analytical processing to be done, no linear planning.

 

The cement overhead wrenched itself apart with an awful groan and the landslide of dirt and chunks of asphalt forced Pidge back up onto her feet. She snagged the back of Shiro’s shirt between her teeth and dragged him away from the main danger zone. She tucked him up against the far wall and crouched over him again. He smelled like blood and she couldn’t tell if he was still breathing.

 

Then something small and pink fell with a soft tink onto the floor. In a second of almost comical stillness, Pidge and the remaining ghouls just stared at the tiny orb. Then it exploded.

 

Pidge tensed in apprehension, but the blast from the little bomb seemed to be just light based and while it did nothing but make her vision spotty, the ghouls shrieked and scattered. They thrashed and yelped as they retreated down into the depths of the system, seemingly blinded by the flash. In only a few seconds, Pidge and Shiro were almost completely alone, aside from a few stragglers.

 

Not for long, though, it seemed, as a new voice floated down, “Allura, let me go fir- or not.”

 

A long, lithe shape dropped through the ceiling into the cavern. The shape straightened and a shaft of moonlight flashed across the face of what Pidge could now see was a dark-skinned woman. The woman made a threatening step towards the last remaining Galra, who was just whining and turning in circles, too disoriented to follow its peers, and swiped her finger in a strange pattern across the baseball bat she had clutched in her right hand. Immediately, it erupted with a pulsing pink glow and she launched herself towards the ghoul with a battle cry that raised the fur along Pidge’s neck.

 

For a moment, the admittedly brave ghoul bristled and looked like it would stand up to her challenge, but when another figure plunged down into the cavern on the first woman’s heels with a hiss and yell of his own it lost its nerve completely and bailed, sprinting back down deeper into the earth in the direction they and Shiro had first come from.

 

The woman chased it for a few steps, “That’s right, save your mangy skin! I’ll hunt each and every one of you down, just you wait!”

 

 “You guys need help down there? Do you see any sign of Shiro?” A third new voice questioned from back up on the surface. That was at least four now; two down with her and at least two more up top. Pidge wondered if she was up to taking them on. All of her ached and she felt on the verge of passing out from the constant surges of adrenaline that’d been pumping through her since this whole thing started.

 

But, she had to protect Shiro. He’d tried to warn her but she ignored him, _yelled at him_ and he’d stayed down here to try and save her from what he knew was coming. She owed him her life, and there was an odd tug deep in her gut that kept her glued firmly at his side. Pidge didn’t think she could tear herself away and leave him even if she wanted to.

 

“Stay up top for now, Keith. The Galra are gone and that last one looked pretty roughed up so Shiro must’ve been here very recently. Those bite marks couldn’t have come from anything much smaller than a werewolf.”

 

“Um, Allura?” Pidge snapped her head to the left, where the boy that had followed Allura down was standing. He was tall and lanky and staring right at her. Damnit. She’d been distracted by the girl’s conversation with the others and hadn’t noticed him looking.

 

Pidge peeled her lips away from her teeth and let out as intimidating of a growl that she could muster. She must have nailed it because the boy lurched backwards with widened eyes.

 

“That’s not Shiro!”

 

The girl, Allura, appeared at his shoulder and cocked her head. “No, but that is a werewolf.” She was younger up close than Pidge would have pegged her as when she first saw her. A mane of hair the color of the moon floated up underneath the edges of the backwards brim of a dark baseball cap. Pidge felt herself freeze up as she put two and two together. The strange weapons, the hat, the pink shine of her eyes.

 

Witch.

 

Pidge shrank away, eyes wide. Witches were not to be messed with. They were the most powerful of the monster borns, and because they looked just like humans and could blend seamlessly, they were also among the most feared. You never knew who was a witch and what they were doing just beyond your notice. They could alter, trick, even kill without ever revealing themselves. If Pidge had ever met one in the past, she wasn’t made aware of it and she would have been perfectly fine keeping it that way.

 

The witch- Allura placed her bat on the ground, extinguishing its pink glow, and stepped forward with her hands raised. “Don’t be afraid, little one. We are on your side, I promise.”

 

“Little one? That thing is the size of a pony!”

 

“Hush, Lance,” Allura waved him away, “If you’re going to speak, use your talent. We must find Shiro as fast as possible.”

 

Pidge whined. Her eyes darted back and forth between Allura and the boy she called Lance, who looked odd now that he was closer. His skin shone strangely in the filtered moonlight, but Pidge wasn’t interested in examining it closer. She wanted to turn and run away from these people, back up to the real world and all the way home, not stopping until she was back in her bed. But she couldn’t because Shiro was helpless, hidden beneath her and she couldn’t leave him.

 

Though both of them mentioned his name, she didn’t know who they were or what motivations they had. Hell, Allura said she was on Pidge’s side, but Pidge hadn’t even known there _were_ sides.

 

Allura took another step towards her and Pidge wanted to flinch away but that wasn’t an option so she jerked forwards instead and snapped at her. But Allura called her bluff and let Pidge’s teeth click harmlessly shut a few inches away from her nose.

 

Lance however, yelped and shoved his way in front of Allura and started to speak, “Hey! Hey, now. We don’t want any trouble. You don’t want to fight, do you? You’re scared and alone, just phase back and tell us what we need to know and then we can help you get out of here. That’s what you want right?”

 

Lance’s voice sounded like cool water running across her fever-hot skin. It sank into the cracks of fear and pain and smoothed her out. He was right, she didn’t want to fight anymore. She felt herself starting to relax, let herself be dragged under by the strange music of his speech.

 

“That’s right. You’re okay. Relax.” Pidge’s heart rate began to slow for the first time since Shiro bit her. She felt odd, floaty, and her head drooped. 

 

Then something fell from the hole in the ceiling and Pidge caught a flash of purple out of the corner of her eye. She went rigid, ears jerking back tight against her skull, jowls pulling away from her fangs.

 

Another Galra, a big one. Lance turned to follow her line of sight and the spell was broken. The Galra ran towards them but Allura and Lance did nothing. They weren’t going to protect her, they weren’t on her side, and Pidge had no choice.

 

“Keith, no!” Allura cried, but Pidge was already shouldering past her and leaping towards the attacking Galra.

 

 She saw smooth purple skin, dark hair and surprised eyes before she was upon him. Pidge planted her front paws on his chest and they slammed together into the ground. The ghoul brought an arm up to block her but Pidge ducked underneath it and sank her teeth into the meat of his shoulder.

 

Lance was yelling in the background but she couldn’t hear him over the rush of her heartbeat in her ears. The Galra pounded frantically on her head with his fists, trying to get her to release him, but she just closed her eyes and dug in harder with a brutal shake of her head. It was instinctual, to move like this. Pidge didn’t know where it came from but she was going to use it. Nobody else was going to hurt her tonight. Nothing was going to touch Shiro.

 

Except in rushing the ghoul, Pidge suddenly realized that she’d left Shiro unguarded and defenseless. Panic flared and Pidge opened her jaws but before she could even take a step a pink eruption of pain ricocheted through her skull. She staggered, trying to stay on her feet, to get back to Shiro, but the world was tilting. The witch swam into view, glowing pink, and then everything went dark.

 

\---------------------------

 

Pidge wasn’t really sure if she was awake or not. The last dozen or so times she’d swum up towards consciousness, the bone-splitting, body wrenching change had triggered before she’d even really understood what was happening. Every bit of her was out of control and while Pidge was starting to wonder if she was ever going to be able to stop, this time she felt like she had a slightly better grasp on tangibility.

 

It hurt when she tried to move, so instead of opening her eyes, she laid still and tried to figure out what was going on.

 

Things she knew: One, she was naked. Which, frankly was concerning. Two, hunger pains were reverberating through her body so hard it hurt. Three, she seemed to be laying on a mat, or at least a soft part of the floor and there was a shredded blanket over her, which helped with the whole naked thing. Not much, but a little.

 

Four, she remembered everything, but there was no way any of it was true. Shiro bit her? No way. Shiro was just a slightly nerdy buff guy that hung out with her dad and brother. He was not a werewolf. Nope. Not possible. And neither was Pidge. Absolutely not. She must have been dreaming, earlier. She wiggled her toes to prove it, and yep, human. Wolves didn’t have toes. They had… paw things. Okay, so maybe wolves had toes, but regardless Pidge felt distinctly human at this point in time.

 

Okay, so she wasn’t getting far with the whole eyes closed thing.

 

The room was pleasantly warm and there was a soft technological hum in the background that soothed her achy head. Pidge took in a slow breath and opened her eyes as slowly as possible. Pain still thrummed through her skull, but it was manageable. Besides the insane warping dreams, she didn’t really feel any other concussion symptoms, though, so maybe getting hit in the head with a weird pink baseball bat didn’t do as much damage as she thought. If that did actually happen. Pidge was really hoping that it didn’t.

 

The room was white and that was about it. Everything was white and smooth. Even the blanket draped over her was white and nearly textureless. There was a door set into the far wall with no handle and a large window looking out into another white room. Or maybe it was a hallway.

 

The place looked like a hospital, or a freaking insane asylum. Pidge pushed herself up onto her hands and knees (yep, definitely human. Also definitely naked) and winced as her injuries made themselves known. Her stomach didn’t look too bad but her ear felt gross when she brushed her fingers carefully across it. It was tattered but scabbed over already, which was strange. She’d either been in this room longer than she thought or her body was better at healing now, after- after what, though exactly?

 

Did that seriously happen? She looked down at her arm and sucked in a quick breath. Puncture wounds bracketed her bicep in an unmistakable pattern. The bite mark was red and inflamed and definitely not as healed as her other injuries were. It was even still oozing blood from the deepest holes, right where Shiro’s canines would have been. Jesus. This was real; this was actually fucking happening.

 

Pidge pushed herself up into a standing position and walked backwards until her butt hit the wall. She was too busy staring at her hands, wondering when they’d next grow fur, to notice just when a figure appeared in front of the door window.

 

She might not have seen him right away, but she did smell him. An earthy scent, like sun on a dusty rock, plucked at her attention and Pidge unconsciously lifted her nose to try and catch more of it. When she finally realized that the smell was coming from a person and looked up, the sheer size of the hulking man peering in through the window made her freeze.

 

 If she hadn’t already had her back pressed against the wall, she would’ve retreated. As it was, she settled for sinking into a low crouch with her hands up defensively in front of her. The man, however, was staring up at the ceiling with a blush dusting over his brown cheeks. Even though he was avoiding eye contact, Pidge felt her lips pull away from her teeth in a snarl without her permission, like an animal.

 

“Who are you?” Her voice sounded raw, probably from all the screaming she’d been doing before ending up here. “Where am I? Where’s Shiro?”

 

 His voice is deep, with a hint of gravel in its bass, when he answers, “My name is Hunk. You’re at, um, a facility. Our facility. Shiro’s here, too. He’s unconscious but Coran says he’s going to be okay.” She recognizes him now, or at least the sound of his voice. He was at the tunnel, the one who was aboveground.

 

“What the _fuck_ do you mean your ‘facility?’ You can’t keep me here,” her voice is more growl then it is human and it scares her. It never used to have that animal undertone to it.

 

Hunk looks down at her, and then immediately flicks his eyes up to the celling again, “Agh, I’m sorry, you- you just don’t have any clothes on and I don’t want to like take advantage of you or whatever-”

 

Pidge manages to swallow down her uneasiness long enough to roll her eyes and pick up her tattered blanket. She wrapped it haphazardly around her shoulders and made sure it covered all the important bits. “There, happy?”

 

“Thank you.” Hunk finally met her eyes and flashed her a smile so sunny Pidge barely managed to catch herself before she smiled back.

 

“Can you at least open the door? I feel like some sort of mental patient locked in here.”

 

Hunk looked down, “Oh, um. I’m not really supposed to let you out. I was actually meant to go get Allura as soon as you woke up.”

 

Pidge hunched her shoulders at that. If he was friends with that witch, then he wasn’t to be trusted. “I don’t want to see her. She hurt me.”  She sounded petulant, like a sulky child, even to her own ears but she didn’t care. Pidge hadn’t asked for any of this, and now she’d been almost killed, knocked out with a baseball bat, kidnapped, and imprisoned.

 

Frustrated tears pricked at her eyes and she looked up at Hunk, “Please, at least open the door.”

 

Hunk opened his mouth and then closed it again without saying anything, clearly flustered at her display. Good.

 

He finally sighed, “Okay, just stay there. And stay calm.” Pidge cocked her head at that, it seemed like an odd thing to say, but she just nodded and waited, pressed against the wall.

 

Her plans of rushing him and breaking out of the room flew out of her head as he squeezed through the doorframe. Hunk was a big guy, but that wasn’t his only striking feature. Clearly evident under his yellow t-shirt and gym shorts were strange interlocking plates of what almost looked like armor. The plates were slightly more golden then his bronzed skin and they had the rough texture of boulders. His back, tops of his shoulders, and the outsides of his arms and his shins, from what Pidge could see, were all covered in the odd rock-like hide that reminded Pidge of a rhinoceros. There were even tiny plates covering the joints of his fingers and the back of his hands.

 

Most monster borns, from what Pidge could gather from documentaries and newscasts, all looked a little bit different from each other, even if they were descended from the same Original species. She couldn’t quite place what sort of monster Hunk was. He looked giant, and strong, and… dangerous. He didn’t seem scary, his voice was pleasantly gentle and his embarrassment was sort of endearing, but then again she had never been nervous around Shiro before, and he’d turned into a giant animal and bit her. So, forgive her for not trusting this one.

 

He noticed her staring, of course. “Sorry, I know I look strange. I promise I’m not going to do anything; we can just talk.” Hunk shuffled the rest of his bulk into the room and shut the door behind him. It sunk into the wall with a threatening hiss and Pidge flinched back against the far wall.

 

“We need to know how you found Shiro and what happened to him.”

 

Pidge squinted at him, confused. “Wait, how do you even know Shiro? He’s just a scientist; he works for my dad.”

 

Hunk made a face, “It’s… complicated. See, this is why I should call Allura. I’m not good at this stuff. There’s a lot you don’t know- were definitely _not_ supposed to know.”

 

“Well if you’re not going to tell me then, let me go!”

 

“Even if it was up to me, which it is not, I can’t! Humans may be a little more tolerant of monster borns than they were a decade ago, like at least we aren’t held in camps anymore, but werewolves are illegal. Extremely illegal!” Hunk looked regretful, as if he really did care, “If anyone found out Shiro bit you, he’d be executed, and so would you.”

 

“Nobody has to know I’m a werewolf!” Pidge argued, her voice desperate, “I never knew Shiro was, I can just hide it like he did. I don’t even know what happened back there! I might not even be-maybe I’m not,” But even as she said the words, she could feel her heart rate triple, fueled by her anxiety, that unknown energy shaking through her. The drone of the electric lights buzzed louder, humming painfully in her ears.

 

A distinctly inhuman whimper forced its way out from between her clenched teeth. Hunk took a step back and raised his hands up in front of him, “Katie, you have to stay calm.”

 

“Don’t call me Katie!” She cried. Only two people called her that; her mom and her dad, and neither one of them were here. The sound of her true name coming out of a stranger’s mouth made her sick to her stomach.

 

“Wait, are you not Katie Holt?” The sound of the door hissing open and a new voice came from behind Hunk’s bulk and Pidge jerked to the side, trying to see who else is there. The owner of the voice sounded familiar and when he poked his head out from around Hunk’s bicep, she recognized him as the boy, Lance, from the tunnel.

 

He blinked at her, waiting for her to answer the question, ignoring Hunk’s protests and attempts to nudge him back out of the room. But Pidge was frozen, undecided if Lance was a threat. He’d had a strange hold over her in the tunnels and something about the way he spoke prickled uneasily across her skin.

 

Lance ducked under Hunk’s restraining arm and took a few steps towards her. The harsh white light of the room shined off of his cheeks and Pidge realized that overlying his brown skin were layers of translucent, shimmering scales. Lance winced when he realized what she was staring at and when he turned his face away she saw the jut of a small fin poking out from behind his jaw.

 

He flicked his eyes back up to meet hers, “For real, though, if you’re not Katie Holt then we really fucked up.”

 

“Lance, I love you man, but for once in your life can you just be quiet!” Hunk pleaded.

 

It was all just too much. The pain of her injuries – the absolute _throb_ of her bite wound, the monsters who were masquerading around in human skin, the way the damn lights seem to be in her eyes no matter where she looked, and more than anything, the choking panic that was once again rising in her throat. She was cornered and they were too loud and kept walking towards her and she didn’t want any of this.

 

Fear hadn’t ever felt like this before. It used to be a fleeting thing; when she had to take the trash out and it was just a little too dark, or the effect of the jump scares from the movies Shiro and Matt liked to watch. Or maybe she just hadn’t truly had anything to be scared of before now.

 

Now fear was like mistepping into a river with a current stronger than anything she’d ever known. Once it had a hold, it swept her up so that she couldn’t even think straight, much less overcome it. She started to shudder, big full body quakes that wracked her from the inside out.

 

“Oh no,” Hunk said, “Calm down, calm down!” He could yell at her all day long and it wouldn’t make a difference at this point. Her pulse was through the roof and she couldn’t tamp it down. Her teeth began to sharpen and split jaggedly up out of her gums. A line of blood dribbled out over her bottom lip.

 

“Lance, talk to her!” But Pidge didn’t want to listen to Lance and his poisonous voice. Her skeleton was vibrating so hard that she couldn’t keep her feet and she pitched forwards onto her hands and knees.

 

It hurt, and the pain just fueled her panic, which made her outlines warp and stretch even faster. She was caught in a positive feedback loop from hell.

 

“Hey it’s okay, try to take deep breaths. You don’t want to change, you want to stay human,” Lance pleaded. The tempo of his voice was no match for her at this point, though. It was a single violin trying to drown out a hurricane.

 

Then, as if the overstimulation couldn’t get any worse (she was stretching and cracking and burning and bleeding) a Galra burst into the room. His smoky scent clogged her nostrils and she pawed at her face, trying to get everything to quit.

 

“What are you guys doing!” Pidge couldn’t see much from where she was writhing on the floor, but she could tell that he was pissed.

 

“You were supposed to get Allura, and we were under specific orders not to engage!”

 

“Stop yelling, Keith, you’re making it worse!”

 

“Me? She was already changing before I even got here!”

 

Fighting it just made the process more agonizing but Pidge couldn’t help but put up what futile resistance she could manage. Her bones didn’t even seem to notice that she was trying to keep them where they were and they shifted and lengthened anyway. The creaking noises, like the boughs of a tree thrashing in the wind, were grotesque and if Pidge wasn’t already gagging from the pain, it would’ve made her sick.

 

And then, with such abruptness that Pidge nearly didn’t catch the transition, her body gave one last shiver and fell still. Everything was wrong and too big but at least it didn’t hurt anymore. She laid as still as possible on her side and tried to suck in deep, heaving breaths.

 

It was the feeling of Hunk’s hand tentatively touching her hand (paw?) that snapped her back into herself and aligned the two halves of what she was back on the same side. As soon as she tried to tear herself away from him, her body responded, glad to be of service again.

 

She scrambled up onto her feet despite the slick floor hell bent on making her paws slip sideways and glowered at the three boys, who were staring right back at her with wide eyes. The Galra’s eyes were human, instead of the glowing yellow shades she’d seen back in the tunnel.

 

The seizing panic faded, but something close to exhilarated hysteria seemed to have replaced it. She didn’t feel as threatened by the trio of monster borns as she did when she was just a small, naked human. Now, she could smell them, smell _everything_ and hear the menagerie of new sounds that the facility offered up. In addition, behind all of the other pressing sensations she felt a tug deep inside of her that propelled her forward. No pause for thinking or assessing, simply an impulse morphed into action.

 

Pidge sprang forward, heading for the door that nobody had thought to close after the Galra, who apparently was named Keith, barged in. Probably thinking she trying to attack them, Lance shrieked and ducked behind Hunk, who threw his arm out in front of Lance and Keith. Pidge tried to dodge underneath it, but she was taller now and her legs didn’t bend the same way so he ended up clotheslining her. She flipped ears over tail and snapped at him in surprise as she tumbled bye. Pidge’s teeth caught and grated against what felt like rock and then her momentum took her past Hunk completely and she flopped out into the empty hallway.

 

Keith darted towards her with his arms out, looking for all the world like he was going to grab her (what would he even do? Pidge was at least twice his size at the moment). There was a bandage peeking out from under his black t-shirt from where she’d mauled him the first time they’d ‘met.’ He had purple skin, but otherwise totally human features if you didn’t count his abnormally spiky canines. Those and Keith’s large ears that were expressive and pointed, and pinned back flat to his head, in a rather ironic mirror image of Pidge’s own.

 

She didn’t even bother to snarl at him, instead she just took off down the hallway as fast as her four new legs would carry her. Or, three and a half maybe, as Shiro’s bite wound on her foreleg made bearing weight almost impossible. Regardless, Pidge was faster then she’d ever been before, faster then Keith, and she hurtled away down the hall, following the relentless pull inside of her.

 

One of them must have triggered an alarm because a siren started blaring in time with the flickering lights set into the wall every 20 feet or so. The alarm plus the frantic yells of the boys she’d left behind resulted in a disturbingly loud cacophony and Pidge tried to pin her ears down even tighter to block the noise.

 

Sterile white walls and countless rooms slipped by as she ran, knowing exactly where to go despite recognizing absolutely nothing. In a few of the bays, there were glimpses of shadowy forms that she didn’t have the time or urge to investigate. Pidge found herself tugged around a sharp corner and she skidded to a stop in what looked like a med bay. The scent hit her before she even registered what the room contained.

 

It was above all, comforting. Like the clear tones of an open night sky, slightly musky and so familiar it made her stumble. Shiro.

 

\---------------------------

 

Shiro was not awoken gently or quietly. Instead, he was born again into consciousness by the scream of alarms and something pointy digging into his gut. He attempted to sit up but got a mouthful of fur and an even heavier weight pressing onto him for his troubles.

 

He shook his head, trying to blink the sleep induced blur out of his eyes, and put up his hands to try and shift whatever was on top of him. Well- oh- hand, that is. His right arm was still gone, though it was now tied neatly into a white bandage. The memory of the last time he was still complete plucked at him but Shiro shoved it away. That wasn’t something he was keen on reliving at the moment, especially since he had no idea what was going on in _this_ moment.

 

“Wha-?” He slurred. So eloquent, very nice, Shiro.

 

The thing currently squashing him swung its head towards him and he realized with a start that it was a werewolf. _His_ werewolf, or at least the one he’d created. Oh god. The one thing that was drilled into him every second of his life not to do, and he’d gone ahead and done it anyway. If his mother was here to see this her teeth would be in his scruff and he’d be shaken around so hard his brain jangled. That was nothing compared to what the humans would do if they caught wind of it.

 

Pidge looked like hell, and that was his fault too. Her fur was sticky and matted with blood and grime and her eyes were wide and rolling in panic. She was panting and trembling, but as she crouched over him, her lanky elbows pressing into his abdomen, Shiro realized that she wasn’t cringing into him from fear, rather she was using her body to protect him.

 

“Shiro!”

 

Shiro leaned out past Pidge so he could try and see just what was happening here. He was definitely back in the facility, but the last thing he remembered was passing out underneath an army of ghouls, so how in the world had he gotten home?

 

The rest of his mismatched pack were crowded into the doorway. It was Keith that yelled his name but Allura was in the front with her arms spread wide to hold everyone where they were. Hunk looked apologetic in the back and Lance had a rather sheepish expression on his face too while he cringed from underneath his best friend’s arm. Coran had Keith by his collar, but he was too busy baring his teeth at Pidge to pull away from the older witch.

 

“Shiro, please, you must try and calm her down. She’s going to hurt herself worse,” Allura said. She raised her hand higher as she spoke and Pidge shrank back onto him at her movement. She let out a low whimper and the sound of it filled Shiro with a wave of protectiveness and shame. His pup was scared and sick and hurt and he’d done absolutely nothing to help ease her transition into this new world.

 

“How long was I unconscious?” He called to Allura. Pidge was half hunkered over him, with her left flank pressing against his cheek and the rest of her perched precariously on the small hospital bed he was reclined on. He tried to smooth her fur with his left hand but it had no effect on her mood. She looked half mad with overstimulation.

 

“Nearly two days,” Allura replied and his heart plummeted. Two days? Two long days and nights of painful, uncontrollable phasing and Pidge had been alone for all of it. She would have been too dangerous for any of the other team members to approach, but she must have found a way to escape wherever they were holding her. Clever girl. She’d been one of the smartest humans he’d ever met, but it was surprising that she’d managed to hold onto any of her human sensibilities in this state.

 

Shiro shoved his left hand towards his pack, “Go away for now, I promise I’m okay. She’s got no clue who any of you are and you’re freaking her out.”

 

“Understatement,” Lance muttered from behind Hunk.

 

Coran nodded, “If you think that’d be best, my boy.”

 

“I do,” Shiro said, “Pidge isn’t going to hurt me.” The werewolf in question looked at him at the sound of her name, but Keith let out an angry hiss and she whipped back around to growl back at him. Shiro sighed. Once he got Pidge settled there was a lot of damage control to be done. Keith wasn’t going to take kindly to him taking a new pup under his wing.

 

Coran, with Hunk’s help, hauled Keith out of the room and Lance meekly followed with a backwards glance at Shiro. Something was going on there, too, then. Shiro sighed. Lots of damage control. Allura hovered in the doorway for a moment longer and nodded at him. He gave her as much of a smile as he could muster, which probably wasn’t very impressive, and she left.

 

They were alone in the hospital bay and the effect on Pidge was immediate. The tension drained out of her and she wriggled a little bit so that she was facing him, then slumped down onto his chest with a huffing sigh.

 

“Oh Pidge,” Shiro buried his face in her neck ruff, “I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen.” He truly hadn’t. Even when everything possible was going wrong down in the tunnel, and then after in the Arena, he hadn’t for one second predicted that Matt Holt’s little sister was going to be thrown into the mess. Guilt wrapped its clammy hands around him and Shiro’s breath hitched.

 

Pidge felt it and nosed at his temple with another whine. Shiro rose up as best he could and wrapped his one good arm around her. She went boneless in his grip and sunk onto her side so that she was laying nearly entirely on top of him. Pidge wasn’t the biggest werewolf he’d ever met by any means but she still probably weighed nearly three hundred pounds and Shiro couldn’t really breathe all that well. But, he’d suffocate a thousand times over if it meant easing Pidge’s ordeal even in the slightest.

 

Shiro rocked her in tiny motions as best he could, ignoring the groans of resistance from his own battered body. He’d condemned this bright young girl to a life of hell, and he was going to have to atone for it for the rest of his own. Pidge was going to face years of training before she could even function in the human world again, and if she slipped up it would cost them both their lives. Nobody outside the pack could ever know that a new werewolf was created.

 

It was the greatest terror of the humans. The only thing they truly feared more than monster borns was becoming one of them. The miniscule vampire population that existed had been wiped out only weeks after the Breach on explicit orders from the government to protect the ‘safety’ of the people. Any monster born that could permanently alter a human’s essence became the most feared creature on the planet. Werewolves were few and far between, and if the government and the Galra (one and the same, or it got closer to that every single day) had their way they would fall to the same fate as the vampires.

 

This is what he’d forced upon Pidge. On the run for her whole life, hated for something she couldn’t control. Shiro squeezed her tighter, but she let out a little yelp and he immediately let go.

 

“Pidge?”

 

She tugged her right leg out of his grasp and he instantly knew what was wrong. He’d only heard about it through word of mouth, but when a new werewolf was made, cleansing the bite mark was the first point of bonding that they were supposed to go through with their originator. It solidified an impenetrable bond between packmates. Apparently, infection set in and it didn’t heal well without it. Pidge’s puncture wounds were angry and swollen and she resisted when he tried to get a better look at them.

 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured, “I’m going to take care of it. Hold on.”

 

Shiro had phased thousands of times over the course of his life, but there was still a moment of blinding pain each time as his body rearranged itself. He considered it a penance for what he had to become.

 

The change uprooted Pidge and they both nearly fell off the bed, but Shiro grabbed the scruff of her neck and steadied her and then nudged her to lay back down between his front paws. She stiffened as he began to lick steadily at the bite wound, but it must have felt okay after a bit because she relaxed again fairly quickly. Shiro put all the love and care into his task that he should have given her days ago. When he was done cleaning out the injury, he started to groom her fur.

 

After a few minutes, Pidge’s eyelids drooped lower and lower until sleep finally took her. Shiro cleaned and cuddled as far as he could reach without having to stand up and move, and then he rested his head down on top of Pidge’s. He would just rest for a second, and then he needed to go speak with the rest of the team.

 

When Allura came back in an hour later, she found two humans curled around each other, wrapped in blankets. Shiro was holding Pidge tight to his chest with his only arm and she had her head tucked up underneath his chin, breathing easy for the first time since they’d hauled her up out of the tunnels.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Would Pidge the human have attacked a near stranger just because he said some shitty things? No, probably not. But Pidge was not a human anymore, and in addition she did not feel like a human anymore. She was bigger and stronger than she’d ever imagined was possible and her thought process was suddenly more impulse than sense. And stupid Keith smelled like the creatures that had torn her family and her life apart.

Pidge shuddered as she slipped out of the memories. Those first few days before Shiro regained consciousness were some of the worst in her life, aside from the morning she’d woken up to hear her mom calling Sam’s cell phone over and over again, before hanging up and calling the police instead.

“You good?” Shiro asked. “We’re almost to the campsite Allura picked out, so try and hang tight.”

“I’m fine.”

Pidge rubbed at the short prickle of her hair, as was becoming a habit. Coran had to buzz off her long hair after she calmed down. Chunks were missing from the attack in the tunnel and the rest of it was so snarled from all that followed after that there was no way to salvage it. Pidge elected to have most of it cut off, but left the top a little longer so her curls still had some life to them.

When Coran had finished, it actually came out looking a lot like Shiro’s hair, short on the sides with a little more action up high, and Lance teased her mercilessly about the resemblance. Whatever, Pidge liked it. She didn’t feel at all like the human teenager she used to be, so it made sense not to look like her either. 

Even her wardrobe had changed. The plain dark tank top and shorts, made of some stretchy witch-charmed material were a constant. Pidge still made a point to stay as far away from Allura as possible, but she was secretly grateful that the witch had taken the time to make them for her. The outfit was identical to Shiro’s, except about 4 sizes smaller, and the fabric adapted to both their human and wolf forms without shredding apart like Pidge’s other clothes.

The truck grumbled as they rounded another pass and the radio kicked back in with a hush of static. A slow country drawl filtered through the cab and Pidge slumped back into her seat and tried not to breathe through her nose. It was like forcing herself into losing half her sight or plugging her ears; she didn’t _want_ to.

But Shiro wouldn’t stop glancing at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. He was incredibly protective of her since he’d woken up in the hospital bay. It was nice; he made Pidge feel safe and grounded in a time when her world was set on its head, but honestly the man just needed to relax sometimes.

Distraction time. “Hey Shiro, how come Keith didn’t turn into a werewolf when I bit him down in the tunnels? Or Hunk?”

“Wait, you bit Hunk?” Pidge stared mutely back at him, unwilling to elaborate on that unfortunate incident during her first fully conscious day inside the facility.

Shiro blinked back at her and then shook his head, “Never mind. Ah, well only true genetic werewolves have the ability to create new werewolves. You were a human before I…changed you,” Shiro’s face darkened with guilt, an expression Pidge saw a lot of nowadays, “so you’re unable to. ‘True wolves extend the line - born not bitten’ is how it was explained to me.”

Pidge scowled, “I didn’t expect to see gatekeeping in the monster born community. That makes it seem like people view ‘bitten’ wolves as somehow less legitimate.”

“Other werewolves, not ‘people’ as in the public. I don’t believe that, obviously, but there were a lot of identity politics going on within the community before the Breach. Afterwards… well there really aren’t enough of us left to fight over ridiculous things like that anymore.”

Shiro didn’t sound very affected by what he was saying but he was talking about an entire species disappearing. Bloodlines that had been passed down for centuries. Entire families. How could that not matter? Pidge was realizing more and more each day that she didn’t really know much at all about how the Breach affected monster borns. Sure, there’d been the initial panic after the Galra’s big reveal, and the human government set up camps to hold monster borns while they figured out what to do, but the imprisonment hadn’t lasted very long. 

Or at least, only a few years. Galra helped root out monster borns in hiding and a few witches even defaulted to the side of the humans in return for immunity. With the Galra’s expansive connections, and the immense skills of the witches, the depth of their betrayal quickly dissolved the secrecy that had kept monster borns safe for generations. From what she’d gleaned from listening to Shiro and Allura talk, those that weren’t able to go deeper into hiding were at the mercy of the government. 

However, in more recent years, humans showed themselves to be more accepting and tolerant than their government gave them credit for. After years of protests and lawsuits the camps were finally closed and the known monster borns were freed to live their daily lives, though kept under constant legally-ambiguous surveillance. Peace was tense, but it was holding so far.

Shiro sighed next to her, “Trust me, Pidge, not being able to create other werewolves is a blessing. You don’t have to be as careful as I do. Well actually, most of the time if a monster born has lineage from one species, a troll or a ghoul or whatever, they usually don’t turn if I bite them. It’s mostly just humans I have to watch out for.”

Again with the guilt. It was insane just how much Shiro hated what he could become. Sure, it was a little annoying that every time Pidge got scared or excited or anything above or below a careful neutral threshold she exploded into a monster, but she didn’t carry the same weight about it as Shiro did, and she certainly didn’t harbor any ill will towards him for changing her. 

But, the thing he carried the most guilt for he refused to talk about with her. Pidge clenched her toes inside of her shoes as she debated bringing it up again. Becoming a monster had shot some holes in her impulse control it seemed, because she only squirmed for a few seconds before blurting out a question.

“Shiro, how did it happen that night? Why didn’t you bite Matt or my dad?”

He flinched. Not so much away from her, but as if he was cringing back from his own memory. “Pidge I’ve told you everything I know; I don’t know where the Galra took them. They separated us right away, I didn’t have a chance to- to do anything.” Shiro’s eyes slipped closed just for a moment before he straightened up and refocused on the road.

That couldn’t be all there was. Everything Pidge had been through couldn’t just lead to a dead end. She wouldn’t accept it. Her upper lift twitched, a snarl waiting just under the surface, but she muscled the anger away and pleaded, “Please, Shiro. I need to know what happened to them.”

Shrio huffed out a breath through his nose and turned his face towards the window, away from her. The cords of his muscles strained down the forearm of his left hand as it gripped the wheel. It was a sore spot, but one she couldn’t stop digging at. She’d gotten so little information from anyone and even though it nearly broke Shiro each time she asked, she couldn’t help it.

“I don’t know, Pidge! I don’t know!” Shiro burst out, startling her. “I don’t know what to tell you, okay? I tried to keep them safe but I failed, and I’m going to be sorry about that for the rest of my life. I don’t have any other answers for you.”

At times like these, when his controlled surface rippled just a bit, it was obvious that Shiro wasn’t quite human. Pidge didn’t know how she never realized back before all of this. His pupils were dilated and something powerful churned beneath his skin. There was something there that was inexpressibly _more_. The outburst had been more growl than words and it cowed Pidge instantly. She tipped her chin up to flash her throat in a silent, instinctual apology for overstepping and conceded to curl up on the seat. 

She could sense Shiro looking at her. Feeling raw, she turned away and tucked her nose under the crook of her elbow and tried to make herself smaller. 

“Pidge…” he tried, but trailed off. Neither one of them said anything after that.

\-----------------------------------

The transition from exploding into a beast every time someone spoke to her to sitting upright in a moving vehicle and being able to be in the same room as Allura and company had not been an easy process. Even stuff that should have been easy, like joking with Coran and Lance or helping Hunk make lunch had taken time. Hell, even after a month she and Keith could barely breathe the same air without someone getting hauled away in a huff of claws and fangs. That wasn’t her fault, though. The ghoul had hated her guts from the second he laid eyes on her.

Okay, so she had been mauling him at the time, but that was beside the point. Pidge knew that Keith hated her far more for taking Shiro away from him than he did because of some little bite.

It was obvious from the second she woke up for the second time in the facility that at the time felt more like some psycho kidnapper’s den.

Her entire body ached, like a mixture of growing pains and muscle soreness, and when she brought up her fingers to gingerly prod at her right ear, she could feel the several tattered notches taken out of it by the ghoul’s claws. She was also hungrier than she’d ever been in her life. It was actually painful, and upon acknowledgement the hollowness flared even more uncomfortably.

Shiro shifted underneath her and Pidge tried to sit up without waking him. Someone had put an oversized tshirt on her while she slept, but underneath it she was as naked as the day she was born, which unfortunately seemed to be becoming a running theme. Wake up, have no clue what the fuck was going on, and be naked. Three out of three, she was nailing it.

Finally upright, Pidge eased one foot off the bed but hesitated before putting her other down on the ground. Where was she even going to go? She should find a phone and call her mom-god she must be sick with worry- but Pidge didn’t know the way and she didn’t want to be thrown in that cell-like room again if Allura or any of the others caught her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A voice seemingly out of nowhere broke through her thoughts.

It was so unexpected that even before all of this happened it would have been enough to make her jump, but now Pidge was just a human outline trying to contain a volatile nebula of _other_. 

Adrenaline spiked in her core and she scrambled to face the threat. Even as a human her limbs seemed unfamiliarly long and her knee caught on the railing as she spun. Pidge yelped as she tumbled over the side of the cot and hit the floor. Her bare skin hitting the tiles made a loud smacking nose.

Keith sneered at her from the corner he’d been hiding in like some creep. His elongated ears were pressed back and low against his skull.

“What the fuck,” she gasped. That energy was back. It held her tightly in its fist and shook her until her bones started rattling.

Keith came forward to stand over where Pidge was trying to push herself up onto her knees and said, “Are you serious? Can you not control yourself for two seconds? Shiro needs to sleep!”

The indignant anger that flushed through her made Pidge’s arm muscles convulse and she collapsed back onto her stomach. Her chin smacked against the floor and the pain made her tremble even harder. “I’m trying,” she choked out, “and we were f-fine before you got here- AH!” Her face felt like it was splintering, her arms, her sternum bending, breaking.

“No, _we_ were fine before _you_ got here!” Keith hissed, and honestly now he was the one who was going to wake up Shiro, and if Pidge wasn’t basically seizing on the floor she would have been throttling him.

A hundred retorts flooded onto her tongue but she was past being able to speak. She dug her fingers and toes into the cool tiles and tried to hold onto her humanity, but the shaking drug her backwards into pain and there was nothing she could do about it. It got worse and worse until it felt like there was no possible way anything could ever be okay again and then it was over. The tshirt lay in tatters around her.

Pidge didn’t let herself heave in even half a breath before staggering up onto her paws and lunging at Keith. Logic still existed somewhere in her head, but it was shoved far from the forefront and at the moment all Pidge felt was fury. How dare he. She had not chosen this! Keith could have Shiro if he wanted him so badly; Pidge just wanted to go home to her family. And these people were not it.

Would Pidge the human have attacked a near stranger just because he said some shitty things? No, probably not. But Pidge was not a human anymore, and in addition she did not feel like a human anymore. She was bigger and stronger than she’d ever imagined was possible and her thought process was suddenly more impulse than sense. And stupid Keith smelled like the creatures that had torn her family and her life apart.

“Hey!” Keith grunted as she bowled him over but whatever he had been going to say dissolved into a cacophony of snarls and hisses as Pidge’s momentum and impact splayed them across the floor.

Keith rolled to the side and rammed an elbow into Pidge’s throat as he went. She gagged but vaulted after him. He dodged a swipe of her paw and raised his own claws back to strike but a thunderous command cut through the blood rushing in Pidge’s ears.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Pidge froze so fast it probably looked comical, but Keith went just as rigid so she didn’t feel that embarrassed about it. Shiro towered over them, pale but otherwise standing tall.

He waded between them and hauled Keith upright by his collar. Shiro shook him a little and growled out, “What’s going on here?”

Keith’s toes were only scraping the ground and Pidge huffed out a weird wolf equivalent of what must’ve been a laugh (it felt like a laugh) at the sight of him looking like a scruffed kitten.

“She was trying to run away again! I stopped her and she freaked out. It’s not my fault she can’t control herself,” Keith hissed.

_Liar!_ Pidge was up on her paws in an instant. She couldn’t say anything to defend herself and the new energy inside of her churned in frustration. She lurched towards Keith again but Shiro dropped him and stepped to intercept her. Before Pidge even realized he was moving, Shiro’s leg swept out and his remaining arm wrapped around her neck and then she was being flipped onto her back once more. Her nails scrabbled against the tiles for an instant but Shiro pressed his face in close underneath her jaw and said quite calmly, “No, Pidge. Stop it now. Lie still.”

The tone of his voice and the clear command that rang out drained the fight out of her. Pidge went limp and whined. Shiro opened his mouth so Pidge could feel his teeth against her fur for another moment, then he nudged her muzzle with his nose and leaned back onto his heels to look up at Keith.

“Keith, she’s a new werewolf; you’ve got to cut her some slack. Antagonizing her isn’t going to help anyone.”

Pidge had only known Keith for a few days but even she could tell that statement wasn’t going to go over well. His purple skin darkened in fury and he closed his eyes briefly before spinning on his heel and stalking out of the room. He had a thin tail with a bit of fur on the end that lashed as he went.

Shiro sighed and ran his hand through his hair. The white tuft of his forelock stuck up in the air like a reverse cowlick. Pidge pushed herself up into a sitting position, eyeing Shiro to make sure he was okay with that.

He noticed her glance and said, “You can get up if you want to. I don’t know how much you know about werewolves but there’s none of that controlling alpha stuff you read about sometimes. Everyone here is a part of my pack but I’m no more the alpha than Allura or Coran is.” 

Shiro went to reach for her but he tried to do it with stump of his right arm and the misstep made Shiro flush. Pidge could see the transient confusion, then disgust and embarrassment flicker across his expression. She tentatively nosed at his left arm until Shiro moved his good hand to rest on the longer ruff of fur around Pidge’s neck.

Pidge squirmed happily and ducked her head so his hand was rubbing behind her ears instead, the fight with Keith all but forgotten. It was so hard to dwell on anything but _now_ when she was in this form. This was what was important; Shiro’s fingers burying themselves in her fur and his scent sifting so comfortingly through the air. It smelled as it had last night, like a cold night under an open sky and something that just said _Shiro_ that she couldn’t really put into words, even in her mind.

In addition, now that she actually had time to take it in there was another more complicated scent thread spooled out over the top of the others. Pidge shoved her nose into the crook of his neck and sniffed so hard that Shiro chuckled.

“That tickles,” He murmured, but didn’t push her away. Instead he leaned his forehead against hers. 

“I’m so happy to be home,” Shiro murmured, more to himself than to her. And that was it, Pidge realized. The scent of Shiro’s pack. It was dusted all over this place and had been a part of Keith’s smoky odor, too. The smell was like nothing she recognized; it was the dirt-spice of magic and the moment of stillness before a gust of wind, or maybe what space would smell like if it was possible for stars to smell like anything at all. It prickled in her nose with potential. 

Pidge liked it. She wondered for a moment if she smelled a little like that too now, but with a jolt of panic that thought suddenly reminded her of why she had tried to get out of the hospital cot in the first place.

_Mom._ She had to find a way to contact her own family. Pidge clambered up, dislodging Shiro as she did so. Pidge pushed towards the door, realized she couldn’t open it on her own and spun back around with a whine of frustration.

“I’m sorry, Pidge but you can’t leave here. If someone saw you-”

No! That wasn’t what she meant; Pidge knew that what Shiro had done to her was a legal offense with a deadly consequence, she didn’t need to go - she just needed to tell her mom where she was. 

Pidge moaned in frustration and spun another circle. Not fair, none of this was fair, how was she supposed to function like this? How was she supposed to keep looking for her family?

She was used to her mind moving fast, but never like this. Being in this form was emotional whiplash. Pidge was used to solving problems without even having to concentrate, but now she couldn’t do anything but think _move run go mom, MOM do something_ and there was no room for anything else. Just like there had been no room for anything but anger at Keith, or that fear that consumed her over and over again for days in that horrible white room.

Shiro was saying something but Pidge was too deep in her own spiral to notice. She reared up and slammed her paws against the door to the medical bay and when there was no give, a sob that had no outlet in her current anatomy rose up in her chest. 

The sob morphed into something new and Pidge threw back her head and howled. When her breath ran out she just sucked in another one and kept going. Shiro’s hand was on her lower jaw and he was trying to get her to look at him but Pidge kept her eyes screwed shut and continued to let out all her stupid fucking helplessness in great, rib heaving howls.

\----------------------------

Shiro was stunned at Pidge’s frenzied display, even though he shouldn’t have been. The pack he’d grown up in was all genetic werewolves except one man, and even though Shiro was only ten when Jackson had been bitten, the ordeal and the strain it put the pack through had never faded from his memory.

But seeing it again over a decade later, this time being his fault, made Shiro realize that he hadn’t truly comprehended the magnitude of what he’d done until that moment. How much he was now responsible for.

Pidge’s howls were terrible. Frustration reverberated with sorrow and anger, and the heavy notes were magnified by her huge frame. The cries bounced off the walls of the med bay and echoed back until Shiro couldn’t even hear his own placating pleas.

Shiro had grown up with werewolves but he still recognized just how off they could look. It was truly an uncanny blend of man and beast. Pidge’s ribcage was flatter and shorter than a true wolf’s and the bend of her upper forelegs was reminiscent of a human’s brachium. They were meant to be on all fours- yes, but it didn’t change the image of Pidge being suspended so precariously between two states of being. Human eyes juxtaposed with a muzzle full of triangular teeth. Fur, but curled up and unruly at the ends just like her hair. A wolf’s howl but with the emotion of an upset kid packed in around it.

Shiro could shift into his own wolfskin but what was he supposed to do after that? Impersonate his mother and toss her down like a pup that was throwing a tantrum?

But no, even though Shiro wasn’t sure what had triggered this particular outburst, he was pretty sure Pidge was warranted to a few after the hell he’d put her through.

Though she was being terribly loud. Allura was going to send in reinforcements if Shiro didn’t get this under control. He slid closer to her and tried to get ahold of her muzzle again. It was quite likely she would snap at him but Shiro didn’t really mind; even his human skin was thick.

True to his predictions, Pidge startled at his touch and tried to simultaneously skitter away and flash her canines. Shiro whipped his hand back with inches to spare and rose up on his knees to stay in front of her.

“Look at me, Pidge. Let’s start working on some grounding techniques, okay? I’m going to help you calm down,” Shiro murmured.

“Maybe I can be of some assistance,” an upbeat voice said. Pidge snarled and whirled and Shiro just managed to keep his shoulder in front of her.

“Ah, thank you for offering Coran,” Shiro grunted, “But I’m not sure Pidge is in the best frame of mind-”

“Nonsense!” Coran chirped and stepped fully into the med bay. This intrusion was too much for Pidge and she gave a gruff little bark before retreating behind Shiro. He automatically raised his remaining arm to set up a barrier between her and the witch she was terrified of. At least she wasn’t howling anymore.

Coran was wearing his favorite navy blue coat that always reminded Shiro of a sea captain’s garb. It had eight mismatched gold buttons and twice as many pockets sewn onto and into it that held various charms and spell ingredients. Something in one of the pockets jangled as Coran knelt down next to Shiro. A leather aviator cap topped off his ensemble and made Shiro feel quite underdressed in his sweatpants and threadbare shirt.

“I heard whispers that our new friend might be a tad wary of witches, so I thought I’d introduce myself and show her a few spells,” Coran said with a smile and a mustache waggle. The aforementioned mustache was always moving, the ends twitching and bristling in waves like tiny radio conductors for the buzz of magic that Shiro wasn’t privy to feeling, and right now was no different.

Pidge was keeping up a low rumble behind him. It sounded intimidating but it was easily recognizable as a sound of distress to Shiro. He’d have to remember to ask Allura what actually went down in the tunnels between her and Pidge after he’d passed out. 

Or maybe Pidge’s fear of witches had started long before this mess. After all, the Galra made sure that the humans’ perspective on monster borns was based off of fearmongering and lies. Who knew what Pidge was was thinking, and it would continue to be impossible to tell if Shiro couldn’t get her calmed down enough to shift back.

“I’m really not sure that that’s a good idea,” Shiro pleaded but Coran just shuffled his limbs around until he was in a more comfortable position and grinned at them. He obviously wasn’t taking the hint and Shiro was exhausted and the bit of his arm that he had left was throbbing and Pidge was _still_ growling and honestly, he was in over his head.

In the absence of further protesting Coran leaned forward, muttered, “Abracadabra!” and pulled a quarter out of Shiro’s ear.

Pidge stopped growling. Shiro too sat silently and blinked at Coran.

“Aha! Bet you two haven’t seen a witch of my caliber before,” Coran said with a chuckle. He spun the quarter on his palm and then plucked a second one out of Shiro’s other ear.

“You’re full of them, Shiro my boy!”

Pidge edged closer and poked her snout out from under Shiro’s still-outstretched arm to get a better look. She glanced up at Shiro but he just shrugged. He’d never seen any witch do quarter tricks before.

“That was just a warm up. Now for the real stuff.”

Coran rubbed his hands together and squinted his eyes in concentration. Then he shot his hand out and plucked at Shiro’s face, making Pidge snort in alarm. Then, just as fast, Coran revealed his thumb tucked between two of his fingers and hooted, “Got your nose!”

After another beat of confusion, then Shiro breathed out a defeated laugh and rolled his eyes at the man’s antics. Pidge however, was indignant. She huffed and stepped carefully forward, dislodging Shiro’s arm entirely. She eyed Coran and then booped Shiro’s definitely-still-attached nose with her own as if to say, _I’m not an idiot, dude._

Coran tipped back his head and roared with laughter and Shiro couldn’t help but join him. The witch wicked a tear away with his index finger and said, “That’s right, clever girl. Can’t pull one over on you can I?”

Pidge snorted again but sat down next to Shiro instead of behind him, curiosity about the strange newcomer outweighing her fear. She curled her tail neatly around her paws.

“I’ll show you something real if you like?” Coran asked softly. The left side of his mustache prickled then flattened. Pidge hesitated, but after a moment she dipped her head in a nod. Coran beamed and winked at her. “Just a moment.”

He fished around in his breast pocket and pulled out a handful of items which included, among many other bits Shiro couldn’t distinguish, two marbles, a fish hook, half of a peach pit, and a single firecracker. Out of the remaining conglomeration, Coran selected a rumpled paper packet and poured the rest back into his coat. 

Coran unfolded the packet and shook out its contents onto his palm. Both Pidge and Shiro’s attention was rapt as they watched him work. Shiro loved magic and was perfectly happy to watch as long as Pidge was no longer freaking out, and indeed her tantrum seemed to be forgotten in favor of curiosity so thick it was practically tangible. 

What appeared to be dried marigold petals fluttered out of the packet and Coran pinched two of them between his thumb and forefinger until they crumbled into dust. Then he hummed a scrap of a song Shiro didn’t have time to recognize before tossing the petal dust into air with several precise flicks.

Pidge reared back her alarm was cut off as the particles started to light up. Winking on one by one, and then faster- in a torrent; dust motes illuminated up like miniscule lanterns, like eddies of shining atoms right there in the the middle of the medical bay. It was magic - tiny miracles unfolded from thin air, and Shiro would never get tired of seeing it.

The miniature golden galaxy spun between the three of them, whimsical and harmless. The perfect spell to show a scared kid. After putting her at ease, of course. Coran was a genius.

The yellow light from the spell wavered over Pidge’s captivated expression and Shiro felt himself soften. This should be how humans saw monster borns; as beings just as nuanced and beautiful and scared and lonely and loved as they were. Pidge’s russet fur sparkled and her eyes were lit up in wonder instead of terror for the first time in days and Shiro wanted to weep into the collar of Coran’s coat in utter thankfulness.

Instead, the three of them sat quietly on the floor and watched the petal dust until the spell faded and the lights winked out.

As the last speck went dark, Shiro said, “Alright Pidge. Why don’t we try and take a few breaths and shift back so we can talk?”

It took another half hour but eventually with Coran’s help, Pidge was de-wolfed, cleaned up and sat down in front of their ancient desktop computer, human skin pink from the shower loofah.  
Shiro made sure they didn’t tell Colleen too much, but she got as much of the story that was safe. All three of them cried at one point or another but in the end Colleen agreed to let Pidge stay with Shiro until she learned how to function in her new body. 

“I’m going to find Dad and Matt, I promise,” Pidge said. Her fingers were stroking the computer screen next to where her mom’s rested.

“Oh sweetheart,” Colleen whispered, “I didn’t want this for you.” Shiro’s heart plummeted and he ducked his head offscreen.

“None of that now, Shiro.” Coran squeezed his shoulder and pulled Shiro against his side. “You did the best you could, more than any of us could have asked.”

He said it quietly but Colleen had keen ears and she pulled her attention away from her daughter to say, “Thank you for what you did, Shiro. I’m glad you’re safe.”

Shiro bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. He did not deserve to be safe, not when his human charges were still lost somewhere beneath the city. Maybe they weren’t even alive anymore. Unlike Pidge, he had no conviction or promises to make. He truly didn’t know what had happened to the Holts.

But Colleen had suffered enough over the weeks, and the last thing she needed was for Shiro to beg for forgiveness. So he leaned his head into view of the webcam and tried to give her a smile. 

“Thank you, ma’am. Nothing else is going to hurt Pidge, I give you my word.” That at least he could promise. Shiro would rather be dragged back underground and thrown back into the Arena than let anything lay a single claw on his pup. He would die before that happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all. I sort of absentmindedly pound out a few sentences on this fic every once in awhile when I get the whim. While I hope someone is still around to enjoy it, it's mostly guilty pleasure writing for myself at this point. I'm the single member of the 'I <3 Coran's wobbly jellyfish mustache and his way with kids' fanclub.
> 
> If it's been too long / you're confused about anything going on ask me questions here in the comments or at my tumblr (nowweareunstoppable).

**Author's Note:**

> This was started for some random bang event and abandoned after my partners ditched me. Honestly though, I put a decent amount of work into it so I wanted to share it. It's not going to be the sprawling AU that I wanted it to be, but there will be one more chapter.
> 
> I'm shameless when I beg for comments, so please let me know your thoughts (/hopes/dreams/wishes)! 
> 
> *blows a kiss to the Voltron fandom* y'all are so incredibly creative and you guys inspire me every single day. Much love.


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